DFS Strategy, Reviews, Promo Codes & More

Fanduel vs Draftkings – Review, Strategy, & Promo Codes

Hey there, I’m Chris, creator of Fantasyballblogger.com. I started playing DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports), last September at the start of the NFL season. I was actively involved in a boring ol’ Yahoo sports fantasy league and I kept seeing all those commercials about making real money playing fantasy sports, and I saw a promo code for Draftkings on TV and decided what the heck, let me give this a try….

My first time playing, it felt awkward…I could pick any players I wanted, and had to stay under a salary cap of $50,000. Each player costs a different amount of money, so I had to budget myself and pick some studs and some duds. I didn’t know anything about DFS Strategy at the time, so I just went with my gut, and it worked!

I doubled my money my first night playing on Draftkings, and I have been addicted ever since. After a couple weeks I moved onto Fanduel, and started playing both sites, which most people do.

After the NFL season ended I was up about $1,000, and then I moved into NBA. NBA started to be my bread and butter, and I was able to hit 1st place in large pool tournaments, also known as GPP’s.

Over the past year I have read everything I can on winning at daily fantasy sports, and poker, etc. On this page I am going to make it my goal to give you everything I have learned in an organized manner so you can start winning sooner than later.

Here goes…

What is DFS?

DFS, also known as Daily Fantasy Sports, is a brand new category of fantasy sports, and it is for real money. Not to be confused with betting or gambling, DFS is a strategy game when the player analyzes statistics and sports analytics in order to get the edge on what is going to happen in any given game.

In DFS, whether you are playing on Draftkings or Fanduel, the goal is the same, pick your players, get points, stay under salary, and win.

In daily fantasy, you are playing against a large field of competitors, where everyone is picking from the same allotment of players. Everyone has the same data, so strategy and going against the grain is key.

Types of Contests You Can Play

In DFS, there are a variety of different games that you can play at any given time. Depending on how much you want to risk, and how much you want to spend or win, there is a contest for you.

GPP’s (Guaranteed Prize Pools)

Gpp’s are where the money is at, and is the only place I spend my time. With GPP’s, there are usually thousands of entrants, and that means a bigger prize pool and the winner is walking away with a retirement. The most popular GPP of all is the Draftkings Millionaire Maker:

The winner of this tournament actually gets a check for $1 Million Dollars. Granted, there are 92,000 people involved in the tournament as well, but everyone has the same chance at winning. Typically, around 18% of the contestants will go home winning something in these tournaments.

50/50’s

With 50/50 tournaments, half of the contestants go home with double their money. Not too bad right? Instead of loading the top of a contest with huge prizes, the prize pool on 50/50’s is spread out over the top half of the contest, so its less risky, but less rewarding. With 50/50’s I tend to stick with MLB or NBA, because there are more games, sometimes every day. With NFL, only 17 weeks, I stick to only one game, the Millionaire Maker. I want that million dollars.

Qualifiers

The DFS industry is getting awesome, and if you haven’t got in yet, now is an amazing time. The guys over at Fanduel and Draftkings have put together special Live In-Person contests, where they fly out a group of contestants to Vegas or the Playboy Mansion to compete in a live fantasy championship.

Draftkings NFL King of The Beach Champion Kobe4MVP

In order to qualify to get flown out to a live championship or contest, the DFS sites hold “Qualifier” games that you enter, and the winner of each qualifier contest gets flown out to actually compete live. Often times, the qualifier winner also gets a cash prize too, along with airfare, hotel, an spending money.

Last year alone there were tons of amazing qualifiers, I can’t wait to see what happens this year.

Top DFS Sites Reviewed

There are DFS sites popping up left and right these days, and everyone is tryin to cash in on the multi-billion dollar DFS gold rush, bu two sites stand out more than others, and these two sites are the key players in the industry. The sites I’m talking about are Draftkings & Fanduel.

Draftkings Review

Draftkings is my baby, because it’s where I started out playing. Draftkings, knowing for its weird commercials, is the fastest growing fantasy site out there.

Draftkings Lobby:

The lobby is where it all starts with Draftkings. This is where all of the games you can play are listed, categorized by contest type.

Draftkings Format

With Draftkings, you are given a $50,000 salary for most contests. Your player pool including the salary for each player, along with their status for the upcoming games, is on the left, and your fill in roster is on the right:

In it’s simplest form, all you have to do is pick 8 or 9 players and make it under the $50,000 salary cap. It’s your job to pick the group of players that will make the most amount of points in that given contest. It’s that easy.

DraftKings Promo Code

If you haven’t joined Draftkings yet, all you need to do is click here, sign up, and make your first deposit. With this special promo code, Draftkings will match whatever you deposit up to $200.

Fanduel Review

Fanduel is the #1 DFS site in revenue and amount of players. Fanduel is a great place to play, but doesn’t quite have the sexiness like Draftkings does.

Fanduel Contest Lobby

Fandual Salary Format

Fanduel gives you $60,000 to spend on your players, and the salaries are a lot closer together than Draftkings is.

Fanduel gives you an average fantasy points per game metric, as well as an amount of games this player has played, and his salary. All you need to do is pick your 8 or 9 players, and stay under your $60,000 salary cap.

Fanduel Promo Code

In case you haven’t joined Fanuel yet, click here, make your first deposit, and Fanduel will match whatever you throw in up to $200!

DFS Strategy – How To WIN

Now that you have a good grasp of what DFS is, what the sites are, and how the game is played, its time to get down to the money…how to actually win, and win big.

Set Your Playing Style

When you start playing DFS, you need to determine what kind of approach you are going to take. There are typically 4 approaches to DFS…

Aggressive Shotgun Multi Entry

50/50 Slow Grow

One Shot Best Lineup

Mixed Approach

Aggressive Shotgun Multi Entry

This is my personal playing style of choice, so lets go over that first. Shotgun Multi Entry is a playing style of DFS where the player enters the same large GPP, multiple times, with a variety of different lineups, all revolving around the same core group of players destined to have great game.

Lets say in a given week in the NFL, Jamal Charles has gone down with an ankle injury, and Knile Davis is starting, but since this news hit mid week, Kniles Davis’ salary is at minimum of $3,000. In the same week, Marshawn Lynch is going up against worst run defense in the NFL, and Peyton Manning is facing his former team.

In this situation, the odds that all 3 of these players are going to hit paydirt and be in the winning lineup are high, so what we do to improve our odds is keep those 3 players as a core lineup, and rotate the other 5 players 50-80 different times with different possibilities.

This is the style of play that most of the guys on top use. The odds of you picking the exact lineup once is next to impossible, but rotating players around a solid core gives you insane winning possibility.

The one downside, and it’s a big one, to this style of play is that if you’re core players do not perform well, all of your lineups become dead and are losers. Let’s say, keeping with my example from above, at the last minute it’s announced Jamal Charles is playing, and Knile Davis goes back to a reserve role and gets 0 points. Since he was in all of your lineups, you lose everything.

Now in most cases, the “chalk” matchups do perform well, but in some cases you lose everything. This makes is important to hedge your bets and don’t use all of your bankroll in any given game. Stick to around 5%.